If you'd like to make your own blue LED transilluminator (for viewing gels made with SYBR Safe or CarolinaBlu), here are some ideas you can adapt.
In switching from ethidium bromide to SYBR Safe, I also wanted to use blue light rather than UV. But when I went online to find a blue light transilluminator, most cost in excess of $300. There were a few cheaper options, but if there is one thing we're all about here at Rowsdower, it's do-it-yourself.
Two things. First, there's nothing magic about a transilluminator. It's just some blue LEDs shining through glass through your gel. Second, there's also nothing magic about either sitting on glass, or shining through from the bottom. So I decided to make one that worked from the sides. This isn't an original idea -- although my design is different, the basic idea came from Alex Fedorec.
I use a Horizon 58 electrophoresis box, so I made mine so that it would pretty closely fit those gels. If you use gels of a different size, your design will be a bit different.
So I fired up Librecad and drew up what I wanted -- all black shiny acrylic except for three translucent panes for the LEDs to shine through -- and then sent off the files to Pololu. Way more quickly than I expected, and at a good price (I think $35 complete with shipping, but don't hold me to that), they sent back the beautiful, perfectly laser-cut acrylic parts. I put them all together (with a blue LED strip and a power plug) using super glue and ... shazam! It works like a charm.
I mainly use this to visualize 16S selection of bacterial DNA just to make sure it is okay before sending it off for sequencing, so acrylic is fine because I don't cut the gels.
